Burn the Night

by Jocelynn Drake

  “This was Nick,” I whispered mostly to myself as I clenched my eyes shut to keep the tears from falling.

  “This wasn’t Nick, Mira.” Danaus’s slow voice sent a shiver up my spine. I didn’t want to know the answer to the question I was about to ask, but it came tripping off my tongue before I could stop it.

  “Who burned down my house?”

  “Aurora,” Knox said, causing my head to snap around to him. “She and other members of the naturi moved into the city during the day. They burned down more than a dozen homes in the historic district. The fire department was kept so busy trying to put out the fires that most of the homes burned straight to the ground, along with a few others that weren’t intentionally set.”

  “How did she know which one was my house? I’m nowhere near the historic district!” I shouted, waving one hand back at the burnt remains of my home.

  Knox swallowed once and looked away from me, seeming unable to speak.

  It was Gregor who finally answered. “Amanda told her.”

  “Are you sure?” I whispered, unable to believe I had been betrayed by the nightwalker. Amanda and I had our differences during the past several months, but she’d always been loyal to both me and the nightwalkers of Savannah.

  “Her body was found half burned in the backyard, under a thick grove of trees,” Danaus replied. “Aurora must have gotten hold of her before the sun rose and beat the information out of her before leaving her to the sun. Archie called to tell me he was incinerating the body before there could be an investigation.” I nodded, grateful that Archie Deacon, the coroner for the county, was still covering my back.

  A deep heavy sigh slipped past my lips as I shook my head. “Amanda gave up my private home to Aurora. Was the town house torched as well?”

  “The town house is fine. No one approached it during the day,” Danaus said, helping to ease some of the tension from my shoulders.

  “Where is Gabriel?” I asked. “He would have been the first to be contacted and told the house was on fire along with the fire department. He should have been here to try to get me out if it was at all possible. Where is my bodyguard?”

  Silence was my only answer as Danaus looked to Knox and Gregor, who only looked down at the ground. My stomach twisted in fear and the world seemed to spin around me. Gabriel. My sweet guardian angel. I couldn’t lose him too. Not both him and Michael in less than a year. I needed my bodyguard. I needed his knowing smirk and dry humor. I needed his cautious nature to balance my reckless nature. I needed him guarding me when I slept and needed him waiting for me when I finally opened my eyes each night.

  “Gabriel is in the hospital,” Danaus said.

  “Oh, thank God!” I cried, putting a steadying hand on his shoulder. “I thought he was dead.”

  “He’s hanging on by a thread, and from what the doctor told me, things don’t look good.”

  “What happened?” I choked out the words in my clogged throat, looking anywhere than at the men around me.

  “From what I can guess, Gabriel was one of the first on the scene when the alarms went off at your house. The naturi attacked him and slashed his throat and then pinned him to a tree with several swords stuck through his body. The fire truck arrived with an ambulance, so they were able to get him to the hospital before he bled out, but he was in bad shape.”

  “I’m assuming you’ve been to the hospital. What’s the doctor’s prognosis?” I said in a low, even voice as I struggled to keep the last bit of my temper under control.

  “Not good,” Danaus replied. “If he survives the next couple of days, he might make it. One of his lungs collapsed and several of his other organs are in distress. The doctor also thinks that if he survives, he’ll never speak again.” His explanation put more fuel on the fire building within me. It was one thing to destroy my home and threaten my life, but Gabriel was mine and I would not tolerate any harm to him.

  “Knox, Shelly will be with Cynnia. I want you to personally take her to Gabriel’s side and make her to heal him,” I bit out in slow, clearly enunciated words so there could be no mistake.

  “Shelly is with Cynnia and the other naturi at Mira’s town house,” Danaus interjected, saving the nightwalker some unnecessary searching.

  “What if she can’t—” Knox started, but I quickly cut him off.

  “She healed Barrett the night we were attacked in the tunnels by the naturi,” I snarled, taking a quick step over to stare directly at him. “She can at least try to heal Gabriel. Don’t let her leave that hospital room until she has given everything she can possibly give to heal him!” So far as I was concerned, Shelly had to heal Gabriel.

  “I’ll get her, Mira,” Knox said, meeting my glowing gaze. “She’ll find a way to help Gabriel.” Then he paused. “But, if it’s not enough . . . if it looks like we’re going to lose him . . .” He paused, licking his lips. “Have you ever discussed changing him?”

  This time I was the first to look away, lowering my eyes to the trampled grass. The earth was squishy and cold beneath my feet from where the hoses had been brought in to spray down the fire-engulfed house.

  “We’ve discussed it and he’s said that he would be proud to die in service to me. He said he wasn’t interested in living forever and one lifetime was enough for him.” I forced the words past the lump in my throat.

  “If Shelly has any kind of problems, I will ask him a second time just to be sure,” Knox reassured me, placing one of his hands on my shoulder and squeezing. “I would be honored to bring him over if he makes that decision.”

  “If you ask him, remove the pain first. I don’t want his decision to be a pain-addled one,” I murmured, still unable to raise my eyes to meet his. Equal parts anger and pain burned through me as I thought about my bodyguard dying slowly, alone in a hospital room. He deserved better than this after all his years of service to me.

  My emotions were mixed. A part of me wanted Knox to bring him over, to make him a nightwalker so I couldn’t lose him. But another part of me knew that Gabriel wouldn’t take the offer. He was content with being human, and living a human’s short, fragile life. I didn’t expect him to take Knox’s offer and I respected him for that bravery. He was willing to face whatever awaited us after death. It was something too few of us could claim.

  “What do you want me to do?” Gregor demanded, surprising me. His black jacket and waistcoat were tossed over his arm, while his pristine white shirt was streaked with soot. His carefully coiffed hair was askew. The nightwalker perpetually trapped in the nineteenth century was starting to look as if he’d embraced the modern world. Gregor ran with a group of reckless nightwalkers consumed with only their own amusement, but his presence here tonight told me he was finally willing to step up. It was about fucking time.

  “I want you to return to Savannah. Gather together all the nightwalkers you can find within the Savannah region. Find out who didn’t make it through the night and send the survivors to my town house,” I directed. “I will be there with Cynnia, making final plans on how we are going to deal with Aurora. We will have our vengeance against this attack. She didn’t just attack me, she attacked our city, our home, and we will not stand for it.”

  “You will have your army at your doorstep before the moon reaches its peak tonight, coven Elder,” Gregor said with a slight bow before he hurried across the yard toward a black car parked in the driveway.

  “Do you need me for anything else?” Knox asked one last time.

  “Just do what you can to save Gabriel,” I said. “I will understand if he cannot be saved, but we must at least put forth all the effort we can muster. He deserves that.”

  “I will do everything within my power,” Knox said. He pressed his right hand to his heart before bowing to me. He then ran across the yard and jumped into the passenger seat of the car Gregor was driving.

  Danaus and I stood in silence, watching as they disappeared into the night, heading back toward the city. I managed to push aside my anger a
nd hatred, but I knew that bottle would quickly come uncorked the moment I was finally faced with Aurora. She had struck first, but she’d failed. She should have killed me. She should have personally seen to it that I was destroyed by the fire, or at the very least cut off my head as I slept. But she didn’t and now she was faced with my fury.

  “What’s our next step?” Danaus inquired.

  “We meet with Cynnia. She better have a plan. If not, I will. Aurora struck first and struck hard. She is threatening to expose not only her own race, but also the nightwalkers. Such actions will not be tolerated by the nightwalkers, lycanthropes, or the magic users. It’s time for her to be put down before we find ourselves faced with the Great Awakening.”

  And no matter how badly we wished it to be true, everyone knew that mankind was not ready for the Great Awakening. They had recently survived floods, earthquakes, and economic turmoil that left thousands homeless and helpless. Humanity wasn’t ready to know that its nightmares were real as well. We needed to kill Aurora before the truth was finally released to the world.

  Twenty-nine

  Danaus was kind enough to keep Cynnia and her companions occupied while I slipped upstairs in the Savannah town house. I donned black leather pants, leather boots, and a thick leather top that provided an extra layer of protection against a blade. I was ready to step into war that night and I would take no prisoners. If they stood against us, they died. That was all.

  When I finally entered the parlor, my gaze immediately fell on Rowe, as the naturi smoothly rose from the chair he had been sitting in on the opposite side of the room. Cynnia remained seated next to him, while her sister Nyx stood in the back of the room with a carefully blank expression. Rowe flashed me a mocking smile, but I ignored him. My main concern was Cynnia’s all-too-silent sister. She and Rowe were the experienced warriors, not Cynnia.

  “Thank you for your assistance with Daniel,” I said, forcing my jaw to unclench. I never thought the night would come when I would not only invite Rowe into my home, but also thank him for his help. After centuries of torment and conflict, I nearly gagged on the words.

  Rowe’s smile grew as he stared at me, soaking up the hatred that filled my tense and tightly clipped words. “You know me,” he said with a careless wave of one hand. “Always looking for a way to lend a hand to mankind.”

  I swallowed my next comment and turned my attention to Cynnia, who was looking more than a little uncomfortable. Most likely her discomfort came from the common knowledge that Rowe had performed more than one human organ harvest during his time here on Earth, separated from his own kind. Rowe didn’t help humans. He slaughtered them every chance he got. How she expected me to believe he would actually help us was still beyond my comprehension.

  “What can you tell me about the occurrences in Savannah during the daylight hours?” I demanded, turning away from Rowe before I lit his smug ass on fire. “Was Aurora actually in the city?”

  “She was here,” Nyx replied evenly.

  Cynnia twisted around in her chair so she could look over her shoulder at her older sister. “Are you sure?”

  “I spent more time around Aurora than you ever did. We’re closer in age. I know when she’s close. She’s currently attempting to cloak herself so I can’t pinpoint her exact location, but I can sense that she is just beyond the reach of the city. She is hovering close, waiting.”

  “Were you able to kill any of the naturi that were setting the fires around the city?” I demanded.

  Nyx shook her head. “Rowe and I were outside the city during the day, meeting with the head of the animal clan. He and his people have just arrived, but are unwilling to actually enter the city until they meet with the Fire Starter. Kane is not exactly convinced this isn’t a trap.”

  “I don’t blame him,” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest. “Was there no one else available to stop the light clan from their attack?”

  “The only naturi in the area are those acting as my personal bodyguards,” Cynnia said. “The rest were outside of the city.”

  “And they didn’t see fit to stop Aurora from entering the city?” I cried, raising my voice.

  “They have been instructed not to directly engage Aurora,” Nyx interjected, drawing my attention away from her younger sister, as if to protect her from my wrath. “We’re not going to be the ones that start this war.”

  “Unless you haven’t noticed, the war has been started,” Danaus commented in a low growl. “Last night when she tried to burn the city down.”

  “How many were killed?” I inquired, turning to look at Danaus, who was standing near me at the entrance to the room.

  “The news says the body count is still rising, but the last figure released was forty-three human lives have been lost.”

  The front door swung open then and Knox entered the town house, followed by a couple dozen nightwalkers. I directed the other nightwalkers to the upper floors so the naturi wouldn’t feel more threatened than necessary—I still needed them to stay focused on the problem at hand. To my surprise, Knox was accompanied by Matsui and the four Soga nightwalkers.

  Knox sidled into the room and stood in front of the fireplace, while Danaus and I also moved to the side of the room opposite Rowe and Cynnia. The Japanese nightwalkers remained in the entrance. It was getting more than a little crowded, but it gave me a feeling of security against Aurora.

  Knox sighed heavily as he pushed one hand through his hair. His clothes were still stained with dirt and soot from digging me out of my basement. He was also starting to look a little weary as the weight of the world pressed on his broad shoulders. “Word is still spreading, but it appears that at least ten nightwalkers were killed, including Amanda.”

  “Gabriel?” I asked before I could stop myself. Now was not the time to worry about my broken bodyguard, but I knew my mind would not be at ease until I finally knew what was happening. I tried to take Shelly’s absence as a positive sign.

  “Hanging on,” Knox replied. “Shelly is with him now, doing everything she can to speed along his healing, but she doesn’t seem too hopeful that she will be of much help. Gregor and two other nightwalkers have been stationed at the hospital to watch over both of them.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered. Knox always knew exactly the right course to take. He had just reassured both me and Cynnia that our friends were being watched over in the event that Aurora tried to strike again at those that meant the most to us.

  Looking around the room, my gaze finally fell on the four Japanese nightwalkers. I had assumed they would immediately leave town, considering our disagreement regarding the naturi alliance and their attempt to kidnap me.

  “Forgive me, but I’m surprised to find that you are still here,” I said to my foreign companions. “You know the course of action I plan to take, and I am not changing that course, particularly now that Aurora has openly attacked the people of my city. I have also been in contact with Our Liege, who knows of my plans. There is nothing you can say that will sway me from my decision. I am also not willing to leave here to help you.”

  Tetsuya bowed his head to me before finally speaking. “In truth, we had thought to come to your aid after what happened during the daylight hours. We had assumed that the queen of the naturi would pursue a quiet war among the other races and not seek to expose us all. However, it seems she has chosen to show the humans that they are not alone in this world.”

  “ ‘Had thought’?” I asked. “You’ve changed your mind already?”

  “Your choice of who you have decided to work with does not sit well with us,” said the one nightwalker I had yet to be introduced to. He was smaller than the others and looked considerably younger as well. However, I had no doubt that he was not only the oldest of the quartet, but was truly the leader of the group.

  I opened my mouth to ask what he was talking about, but Rowe beat me to the punch by speaking up first. “Nomura happens to be talking about me,” the naturi announced, meeting my gaze for
a second. The one-eyed naturi then turned his narrowed stare on the Japanese nightwalkers and forced a thin-lipped smile to his face. “It’s been a long time. I didn’t expect to ever see you again, let alone in Mira’s home.”

  “We are very surprised to see you as well,” Nomura replied as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “We never expected you to survive as long as you have.” By the slump of his shoulders and the frown teasing at the corners of his mouth, I could tell there was a great deal of animosity between these two creatures, and I was afraid it would explode all over my living room. Unfortunately, curiosity was winning out over common sense.

  “How do you know each other?”

  “I’ve been on this earth for several centuries, Mira,” Rowe drawled, hatred glinting in his one good eye. “I’ve traveled far and wide in search of ways to free my people. It stands to reason that I slipped far beyond the reach of the West. It was then that I ran across the nightwalkers inhabiting the islands of Japan. I thought we could come to some sort of arrangement. The naturi had been no threat to them in the past, and I assumed our futures would remain on separate courses. As a result, I sought an exchange of knowledge with them.”

  “I am afraid to ask what happened.”

  “Take a good look at me, Mira, and you will easily see the result of my so-called alliance with the Soga clan,” Rowe bit out.

  I stared at the naturi for nearly a minute, trying to see what he was talking about before it suddenly dawned on me. The Soga clan was responsible for his changed appearance, which resulted in him being banished from his people by Aurora. I had met Rowe when I was human, when he was a golden-skinned creature with pale blond hair and sparkling green eyes.

  Now, scars stretched across one side of Rowe’s face, half hidden behind an eye patch that covered his right eye. His hair was black as night and the color of his one remaining eye seemed to match it. His skin had taken on a swarthy complexion and was streaked with more scars. Like nightwalkers, naturi healed from nearly everything. And yet it appeared that the members of the Soga clan had found a way to mark him permanently.